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We Are MJCBY: November 2014

Posted on October 13, 2014

Similar to their moms and like many other members of their families, high-school juniors Hannah Benton and Alison Fleischman traveled to Israel this past summer. Their trip, not unlike the same one their moms took when they were teenagers, resulted in many new friends, a richer sense of their own Jewish identities and a deepening of their own very special friendship bond.

Karen and Heidi had the same experiences on their teen trip to Israel many years ago but had lost touch. It was only a chance meeting at an ice skating rink more than a decade ago when they reconnected and realized they were both members at MJCBY. Their daughters Hannah and Alison soon met in Religious School, and the families became close.

“At first Alison and Hannah were in different classes and didn’t know each other,” the moms share. Hannah and Alison chime in, “But spending a lot of time together at synagogue brought us closer, and as we got older, we discovered we had a lot of similar interests.”

When the families decided to send their two daughters on their summer trip together, they were excited to know that their children were going to have similar experiences to what they had as kids. For Hannah and Alison, it was comforting to know someone who would be on the trip, and during their time away, they leaned on each other for comfort during the stress of the bombings.

“L’dor Vador,” says Heidi, “It was actually a dream that I always had for Alison to be able to go on similar trip that I was able to – and for the girls to be able to solidify their friendship and build their Jewish identity together.

“For us,” adds Karen, “the seed was planted long ago, but it was watered here at MJCBY.”

We are MJCBY. To learn more about Hannah and Alison’s trip to Israel, stop them in the halls of MJCBY and ask them to share their favorite memory…

A fond Memory….

Shared by member Lew Stone, October 7, 2014

Julie & I were at a shiva home in Ocean County this week. We spoke of the death of Julie’s aunt occurring on Yom Kippur. Another visitor reacted strongly when she heard I was from Morristown.

She attended Drew University and was not able to go home for the High Holidays. All the Jewish students were invited to the Conservative synagogue in Morristown. The people there were so warm and inviting. She remembers someone invited her back to their home for the break fast. “It was such a lovely experience which I will never forget.”

I told her that we still invite students from Drew and Fairleigh Dickinson universities to our services. The only thing that makes this story a bit unusual is that the story teller was 85 years old, thus making her fond memory of MJCBY’s hospitality a 65-year-old memory!

This is who we were; this is who we continue to be.

We are MJCBY.

If you have a fond memory or story to share, we want to hear about it. Send us an email.